The Unmarried First Lady, Fighting Ticketmaster (Again), and the Math of Obesity

This article is from the archive of our partner .

Now that The New York Times pay wall is live, you only get 10 free clicks a month. For those worried about hitting their limit, we're taking a look through the paper each morning to find the stories that can make your clicks count.

Top Stories: States are taking money from a national mortgage settlement (meant to give relief to struggling homeowners) and using it to plug budget holes elsewhere. France's new first lady is a twice-divorced mother who lives with, but isn't married to the new president.

World: Afghan soldiers trained by U.S. soldiers and fighting alongside them have turned into the Americans' biggest enemy. Sweden has has its own high-profile murder trial that has some parallels to the ongoing Anders Breivik trial in Norway. Average Mexicans try to distract themselves from the unspeakable drug violence that surrounds them.

Business: A Russian businessman made a big bet on Facebook in 2009, that could soon net $6 billion after the IPO. A hedge fund run out of a different division of JPMorgan was buying the other side of the risky trades that cost their "London Whale" $2 billion.

Opinion: "Europe would be in much better shape if the euro didn’t exist," and breaking it up might be difficult, but better than keeping it together. Why third parties are doomed to fail in American politics.

Health: A new drug trial will test a treatment that could prevent Alzheimer's in "people who are genetically guaranteed to develop the disease — but who do not yet have any symptoms."

Science: An interview with a mathematician working on formulas that can help understand and predict weight loss (or gain.)

Books: The novel I Am Forbidden centers on two Hasidic sisters who are brought together by the Holocaust and then grow apart.

Sunday Magazine: The town of Treece, Kansas, is being wiped off the map after being poisoned by mining operations.

Music: The band Sting Cheese Incident is taking on Ticketmaster by buying up seats to its own shows at the box office (where there are no fees) then reselling them on their website at face value.

Sports: A visit to the Philippines orphanage built and run by Tim Tebow's father.

Movies: A review of Sasha Baron Cohen's new movie, The Dictator, a "lazy" satire with jokes that "feel half-baked and rehashed."

Travel: How to make a road trip from Washington, DC,. to Savannah, Georgia, on the cheap.

Photo Gallery of the Day: Indigenous peoples in Peru are threatened by the proposal to dam a river and flood their homes.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

About the Author

The world has many coming-of-age traditions: sweet sixteens, bar mitzvahs, quinceañeras. But in one African country, 'initiation' is endangering the health of girls and boys.

CHIRADZULU, Malawi — A slight frame gives her the appearance of a child, but the hardened look Grace Mwase wears makes her seem older than her 14 years. In many villages across Malawi, a largely agrarian sliver of a country in southern Africa, custom dictates that both boys and girls as young as eight attend a rite of passage known as “initiation,” after which they are no longer seen as children. The practice is most entrenched in the country's south, where Mwase's Golden Village is located.

Mwase was just 10 when she was led, along with about a dozen other girls, to remote huts outside her village during winter vacation from school in August. The girls were accompanied by older women from their village in Chiradzulu district, near the border with Mozambique. The women, known as anamkungwi, or “key leaders,” told them that when they returned to their villages they should cook and clean—and have sex. According to Mwase, most of the two weeks she spent at the initiation camp were dedicated to learning how to engage in sexual acts. She had been excited for this time with friends away from home, but that feeling quickly gave way to dread as she learned the true purpose of initiation.